A Little Brag

I have recently got to the point where I've decided I'm not going to let Rocky flush a bird and not be steady anymore. Meaning, every time he flushes a bird, I am going to make sure that he sits when the bird flushes, regardless of how inconvenient it is for me. Last weekend I trained with a Springer owner and was able to work the dogs on live birds. I kept Rocky on a long lead (probably about 50') and when he flushed the birds, I gave him a "hup whistle" and used the lead to make sure he didn't chase. The birds didn't fly straight out when he flushed them, so the lead was slack, but he did eventually sit each time.

This past week I took him out for a little run at a local field and twice he flushed doves out of some low willows. When I blew the hup whistle, both times he immediately stopped and watched the doves fly away while he sat their quivering. To be honest with you, I was totally shocked that he responded this way. Macy isn't even close to this point, and I've done a lot of obedience training with her (which, unfortunately, you might not know just by watching her!). I was very encouraged by Rocky's performance, and although I've never fully steadied a dog, it seems like he is well on his way to getting the concept.

Today I took him down to the park for a few retrieves. When I first got there I took him off his lead and gave him a "get out" command. When he got to about 20' away, I blew the hup whistle and he hit the brakes in a hurry. I then rolled a tennis ball about 12" from his nose and he watched it roll by without flinching. Somewhat surprised by his performance so far, I decided to step it up a notch. I walked over and picked the ball up and gave it a good toss, probably 30 yards away. All the while he sat watching. I then gave him the release command (his name) and he torpedoed after the wall. When he was about half way there, I gave him a hard hup whistle, and he hit the brakes, spun around, and sat down! I was absolutely shocked by this. He has such a strong retrieve drive that I didn't think there was any way I'd be able to stop him in mid retrieve without a lot of work. I then sent him to finish the retrieve and did the same drill over again, and got the same response. I'm also working on making him hup before he delivers the ball (or dummy) to my hand, and he did this both times as well.

This was my first time ever asking Rocky to sit in the middle of a retrieve, and he performed as if he’d been doing it his whole life. This dog is really making me excited! I can't believe how easy he is to work with and how quickly he picks things up. He turned 9 months old a few days ago, but sometimes he seems like he is 5 years old

Training at the Lake

I went out duck hunting with a couple of friends today, and although I didn’t shoot any ducks, I was able to bring one home with me for use with the dogs. Both of my friends have Labs, and it was their lease, so the Cockers stayed home for this hunt. Once we were at the lake, when Rocky and Macy discovered I had a duck in my bag, their demeanors changed instantly. They no longer wanted to hunt around;  instead they wanted that duck! I have both Rocky and Macy relatively steady to bumpers, but the duck brought out the worst in them. Even Macy, who is generally extremely steady, had problems with running in on the duck when I threw it in the lake. She did it two times, and both time I called her back short of the duck and then punished her by sending Rocky for the retrieve. I thought she’d get the message the first time, but apparently she didn’t. The duck is in the freezer wrapped in a few paper towels, waiting to be taken out for another training sometime in the near future. As frustrating as it was to have the dogs misbehaving, it was also a great learning opportunity for them. The more distractors and “accelerants” I can have in training, the better, because the more similar it becomes to a hunting situation.

Here’s a short video from their water retrieves, and a few pictures that my wife snapped. I think you’ll enjoy Macy’s water entrance.

Mixing up the Retrieves

If there is any disadvantage to the Cocker’s size, it maybe be that it apparently makes it more difficult for the Cocker to mark longer retrieves. Their head being so close to the ground it makes it difficult for them to have good depth perception at longer distances. While I don’t think there obviously is no way to make the Cocker larger (and I don’t want them larger anyway!), it is still possible to work on improving their ability to make longer retrieves. I don’t think it is physically possible for either of my Cocker’s to make pinpoint marks on those longer retrieves, but I would like both of them to get in the general vicinity of the fall and then search around until the object is found.

Rocky and Macy waiting to be sent on a retrieve:

A normal game of “fetch” generally includes the dog either sitting next to the thrower, or at least being in the general vicinity. The dog then either starts running as soon as the object is thrown, and often is halfway to the fall point when the object touches down, or the did sits and watches until the object hits the ground, and then is sent by the master. While the second of these is obviously the better, the problem that I have experienced from doing retrieves like this is that the dog starts to always stay within your throwing range during retrieves. This was how I worked on Macy retrieving for quite a while, and to be honest with you, she was terrible at making long retrieves as a result. I believe that it caused her to have zero confidence at making retrieves past about 35 yards, and it was frustrating to me to watch her zig-zag back and forth on this imaginary boundary, refusing to go further.

This is the problem with doing one type of retrieve over and over again. Macy barely even watched me throw an object because she knew about where it would land already. Her marking skills were terrible and her range was short at best. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I soon realized that I needed to find a way to stretch Macy out further and to help her make better marks on thrown objects.

I do the vast majority of my training without accompaniment from another human, so I had to get slightly creative in coming up with a solution. The video below demonstrates two types of retrieves that I do with both of my Cockers in order to improve their marking and ability to make long retrieves. As you’ll see in the video, it’s imperative that your Cocker is steady to a thrown object, otherwise the routines will not work. You’ll also notice in the video that Rocky does not always go directly to where the ball ended up. He still is a little anxious in his retrieving and will watch the ball hit the ground, but then fails to watch where it bounces/rolls to. I’m not too upset about this because in a hunting situation they are not going to have a ball bouncing on the ground. Instead, they might have a runner that takes off once it hits the ground, and that bird they will need to trail. When the ball hits the ground and rolls, it creates an opportunity for Rocky to practice tracking and using the wind and scent to his advantage.

Macy and the baby watching the show while my wife prepares to video:

Macy is capable of both of these retrieves, but Rocky does it with so much enthusiasm I gave him the honor of staring in the video!

Thoughts on Gundog Training

When I purchased Macy I had several people say to me, “good luck turning her into a hunting dog, we bought a dog for hunting, but that didn’t turn out so well…now they are just a pet.” I’m somewhat of a competitive person, so I viewed this as much more of a challenge than a discouragement. I’ve put hours upon hours of training into both of my Cockers, and I feel that they are getting closer and closer to being where I want them, although I imagine it will be a learning process their entire lives. In this post I would like to cover the something that I have found to be most the important aspect in training my Cockers, or any dog for that matter. One word: Consistency.

My Cockers are my pets along with being my hunting companions, and I will admit that it’s easy to not always be consistent with them. As pets, sometimes they almost feel like friends. As a result, my natural tendency is to be lenient toward them. Especially if they’ve put in a hard day in the field, or if they give me the pleading eyes! I’ve had to learn the hard way how important it is to always be consistent in my expectations for my Cockers. If one day it’s not okay for Rocky to put his front feet on the counter when I’m getting his food, then it can’t be okay any other day either. If one day I don’t let Macy jump on my lap without being asked, it can’t be okay any other day either. The same holds true for commands I give the dogs while in the field. This isn’t always as easy as it might sound. Sometimes the convenient thing for me to do is to just let the dogs do what they want to do, as long as it’s not damaging anything. Unfortunately, when I’m not consistent in my expectations for my Cockers, they always decline in their overall obedience, and my enjoyment of them consequently suffers.

Coupled with the idea of being consistent in my expectations for my Cockers is the idea of being consistent in my discipline of them. If one day I am extremely harsh with my Cockers and the next I am much softer in my discipline, this only serves to confuse them and make the transgression and the objectives less clear to them. Instead, my goal every day in my training is that when they do something wrong, I respond with consistency in disciplining them. This means I have to set aside any frustrations from the day and focus on the task at hand. Conversely, I have to be careful that if I’m having a great day I don’t go too easy on them either and let them get away with things that they shouldn’t.

Lastly, under the theme of consistency, I have found the importance of remembering that any time I am around my Cockers I am teaching them something, whether passively or actively. If I see them doing something and ignore them, I have just taught them that they can at least sometimes get away with what they’re doing. If I give them a simple command in the field that it doesn’t really matter too much if do it or not, and I let them ignore me, I’ve just taught them it’s okay to at least sometimes ignore me. If I give a command three times before I enforce it, I have taught them to wait until the third command before responding. However, if I am consistent in enforcing the “rules” the first time  and every time, eventually they start to respond with the same consistency I am responding with because they know that there are no exceptions.

The hard part about all of this is that sometimes it’s easy to be consistent, and other times it’s difficult. For instance, if I take my Cockers out for a training session and it’s just me and the dogs, it’s extremely easy for me to be consistent. On the other hand, if I am hunting with a group of guys and one of my Cockers starts misbehaving, it’s extremely tempting for me to NOT do anything. I’d much rather deal with the problem the next day in training rather than drawing attention to my dog in front of the guys. However, once I’ve fallen to this temptation, I’ve effectively told my dog that it’s OK for it to misbehave in that setting. Instead, my responsibility is to swallow my pride and take care of the problem right then and there.

So, to quickly reiterate this simple concept: always be consistent with you Cockers! Be consistent with expectations. Be consistent in disciplining them. Remember that you are ALWAYS teaching your Cocker something when you are around it. And, don’t succumb to peer pressure when striving for consistency.

Cockers are extremely smart dogs, and this can be a blessing and a curse. They’ll generally quickly learn commands, but they’ll also quickly learn to take advantage of you if you aren’t consistent with them. They also have an uncanny knack at communicating things with the expressions, so don’t let them talk you into giving in to their demands! These are great dogs…take the time to cultivate them to their full potential!

Memory Retrieves

UPDATE: See the bottom of this post for a VIDEO of me doing a memory retrieve with Rocky!

In my review of the Hawcroft training DVDs I mentioned that Simon shows how to create an insatiable desire to retrieve in Cockers. One of the methods that he uses for creating this desire is memory retrieves. I had read about these retrieves prior to watching the DVDs, but I didn’t really understand how they worked and more importantly, I didn’t understand how crucial they are for developing the desire to retrieve.

The memory retrieve is really pretty simple. I make my Cocker hup next to me and then throw a dummy out about 20 or so yards. Whenever I am throwing something that I want them to eventually retrieve, I also say “watch” to the Cocker as the object is in the air. I feel that this helps the Cocker concentrate on the object, and eventually it should be useful while duck hunting. After I have throw out the dummy, I start walking away from it and command the Cocker to “come”. After walking a distance the other direction, I hup the Cocker at my side, give him a line with my hand, and then send him.

I have been absolutely amazed at my Cockers’ ability to mark dummies on blind retrieves. Just today I gave Rocky a 100+ yard memory retrieve in very heavy cover. It was scrub oak with knee high grass and weeds mixed in. When I sent him, he took off like a bullet on a line. I thought for sure he had headed about 20 yards to the right of where I had thrown the dummy, but he quickly disappeared out of sight. Apparently he had the right line though, because within seconds he was high-tailing it back to me as fast as he could with the Dokken Pheasant in his mouth. He was EXTREMELY excited to complete this retrieve and tried to give me some kisses after delivering the dummy!

Rocky has never failed to complete a memory retrieve, and absolutely loves them. When he was about four months old I started giving him shorter, may 30-40 yard, memory retrieves and then progressed from there. I don’t know what it is about these retrieves, but they sure increase the retrieving drive. Even Macy, who seems to normally view retrieving more of an obligation than pleasure, seems to enjoy these retrieves.

I have tried to progressively make these retrieves harder for my Cockers, just to keep it interesting, and to improve their marking. I have gone as far as to throw a dummy out into a lake and then walk back into the woods 50 yards before sending one of my Cockers. They still perform these flawlessly.  It’s good to start out doing these retrieves on open ground, but you’ll be amazed at their ability to find the dummy in heavy cover as they get older.

One benefit of doing memory retrieves is cultivating the desire to retrieve, but I think there is a second benefit. I haven’t noticed it with Rocky, but Macy sometimes has difficulty with longer retrieves. She will sometime get to a certain distance and then start to quarter back and forth, but fails to go any further. I am not positive what caused this, but giving her longer memory retrieves has seemed to help open her up a little bit. It’s definitely good for her to get out 100 yards from me to complete a retrieve because it gives her some confidence at longer distances on normal retrieves. I unfortunately did not do memory retrieves with Macy when she was younger, and I think that has partially contributed to her lack of confidence at longer ranges. I think there is one other factor, but I will cover that in another post.

Tomorrow I would like to get a video of Rocky completing one of his memory retrieves, but I was unable to get one today. So check back tomorrow evening for the video! I promise to have pictures and videos that are more relevant to the topic from here-on-out!

Equipment that I use

In the near future I would like to take some of my posts to cover different training sessions with my Cockers. Some of the posts will cover specific training sessions while others will just cover generic routines and techniques that I use while training. However, before I make it into those posts, I’d like to briefly describe some of the equipment that I use for training. That way, as I refer to different items in later posts, hopefully everyone will know what I’m talking about. For many of my readers I think that this will be a very elementary post, and I apologize for that.
The first item that I believe is crucial to training is a slip lead. They are extremely handy because they can be carried in a pocket and used whenever necessary. They also do not need a collar when being used, and since I don’t run my Cockers with collars on, the slip lead is perfect. I also find the slip lead to be comfortable in my hands, and the shorter length is what I want for keeping my Cockers under control. The leads come in varying lengths, but I use a four foot lead. I can’t think of any situation where I want my Cockers in front of me when they are on a lead, so the four foot lead is perfect for keeping them in a heeled position. The leads also come in varying diameters. I would recommend getting the smallest diameter available, within reason.The leads that I use are from Mendota. I have been very happy with them to this point. Plus, they come in lots of different color combinations so you can look stylish in the field!
A good whistle is also an invaluable training (and hunting) tool. The whistle allows me to get my Cockers’ attention quickly and consistently, and is much more “sophisticated” than yelling voice commands at my dog. I started out using my voice and using my mouth to whistle, but it was a night-and-day difference when I switched to using a real whistle. The Cockers are much more responsive to a whistle sound  than to a voice, and using a real whistle allows me to get a higher pitch than I could by using my mouth to whistle. The whistle that I use is the Acme 210.5. It is designed specifically for Spaniels. It is also  does not have a pea inside of it, so there is no fear of of having the pea stick in poor weather. An added note, don’t forget to purchase a lanyard along with the whistle—you don’t want to constantly be fumbling in your pocket for the whistle!

I own a wide variety of retrieving objects for my Cockers. The most basic and necessary of these is a canvas dummy. Cocker puppies need a smaller sized dummy when they are young puppies, but I had Rocky on the full sized ones at about five to six months of age. I also use Dokken Dummies often during my training. I own the Partridge and the Pheasant, and these sizes seem to suit my Cockers well. The Partridge was  probably Rocky’s favorite retrieving object when he was younger, and he has recently started showing the same desire for the Pheasant. The results are obviously subjective, but I feel that these dummies have improved the way both of my Cockers hold real birds. Besides, if they like retrieving them so much, there’s no reason to stop using them! The last retrieving object that I use is a regular tennis ball. Sometimes I will put a little pheasant scent out of a bottle on it, but oftentimes I just leave it as-is. The tennis ball is excellent for using in mowed grass since it’s harder for the Cocker to locate and encourages searching. It also encourages the Cocker to follow the scent trail to the object, which somewhat resembles a shot bird that is running.
I use a variety of other objects during training sessions, but the three things mentioned above will get you well on your way to having a hunting machine. Other objects include a 30’ lead for controlling a younger puppy (both my Cockers are well beyond that stage), frozen pigeons (pretty self-explanatory), and lots of patience!